Palworld Director: Nintendo Switch 2 Version Worth Considering if 'Beefy Enough'

When Pocketpair launched their monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokemon, often being dubbed "Pokemon with guns." Although Pocketpair's communications director, John 'Bucky' Buckley, isn't fond of this comparison, the allure of collecting adorable monsters has led many to wonder if Palworld might eventually come to the Nintendo Switch, the preferred platform for Pokemon fans.

Unfortunately, Buckley has confirmed that a Switch release isn't feasible at this time, citing technical limitations. "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," he explained. I had the chance to speak with Buckley at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco following his talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' During our discussion, I also inquired about the possibility of a release on the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2. Buckley expressed interest but noted that without access to the new console's specifications, it's too early to tell if a port is possible. "We haven't seen those specs yet," he shared. "Like everyone else, we're waiting. I'm walking around GDC hoping someone will tell me them, but everyone I've spoken to says they haven't even seen them. If it's beefy enough, it's 100% worth considering. We did a lot of optimization for Steam Deck, which we were really happy with. Still work to do, but we're really happy with how it turned out. So we would like to get it on more handhelds if possible."

Pocketpair is currently embroiled in a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics, which has fueled speculation that this might be the real reason Palworld hasn't appeared on the Switch. However, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit isn't the primary barrier to releasing on Nintendo's platforms. He briefly touched on the lawsuit, mentioning that it was unexpected and that the team had conducted thorough legal checks before launch to avoid such issues. "Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokemon]," Buckley remarked, "so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain."

The question remains whether Nintendo would be open to having a game it has legally challenged on its next-generation console. We will be posting our full interview with Buckley later this week, so stay tuned for more updates on Palworld. In the meantime, if you've taken a break from the game, now might be a great time to return, as Palworld recently introduced cross-platform play in its latest update.